The Guardian
by little-yellow-cape
Summary: (First in a series; full summary inside.) Ben is four years (and ten months) when Breha Organa-Solo is born. Everything sorta goes wrong and she's tiny and pink, and he doesn't really understand why everyone thinks she's so cute, why it's so important that he be a 'good big brother'.
1. i

_Ben is four years (and ten months) when Breha Organa-Solo is born. Everything sorta goes wrong and she's tiny and pink, and he doesn't really understand why everyone thinks she's so cute, why it's so important that he be a 'good big brother'.  
_

 _Ben is just past five when he finds out what that really means. It's terrifying, and awful, and he's so lost and confused, but he knows exactly what he has to do.  
_

 _Ben is almost eleven when he decides to become a Jedi. It's entirely Breha's fault._

* * *

 **(This is honestly just me trying to remain in denial. Also, Han and Leia don't deserve any of this. They deserve to be happy. And Rey deserves a loving family. And Ben just needs to chill the crap out. So this was born.)**

 **Fair warning, this is a little...weird I guess? Ben's not even five yet in this chapter, so I tried writing like how I imagine a four year old thinking (it's harder than it sounds, actually). So I hope it's not too confusing? If it is, feel free to tell me and I'll try to clarify anything!**

 ***This in no way reflects my actual theories for Rey's parentage or the plot of the official movies.**

 ****Cross-posted on ArchiveOfOurOwn under the username little_yellow_cape**

 *****Everything belongs to George Lucas and Disney. I own nothing.**

* * *

 **i.**

 ** _Ben is four years (and ten months) when the Day finally comes_** _._ Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke had been talking about the Day for weeks and weeks (even _months_ ) now, always reminding him like he'd forget or something. It seems like to him, however, that maybe _they_ forgot.

He tries not to think about their sorta scary flight on the _Falcon_ only a little bit ago (it feels like _days_ ago now). Tries not to think about how he sat in Chewie's lap, helping the Wookie pilot the _Falcon_ , while Dad and Uncle Luke were with Mom. Tries not to think about how Chewie tried to talk endlessly to him to drown out the sound of Mom.

Ben knows that it's okay to scream and cry. He does so every now and then, and Mom and Dad say that it's alright sometimes. But Ben's never heard Mom sound like that. Chewie had told him that she was okay, that sometimes that's just how it goes, but then they'd landed on Chandrila and people had rushed on to help Mom and Dad, and Uncle Luke had scooped Ben up, and there'd been high-pitched screaming which had hurt Ben's ears and he'd been so confused.

And maybe a little scared, too.

Now, they're in a new building Ben's never seen. Everything's really white, except it isn't a pretty white, like the snow he'd seen when Dad took him to the polar regions of Corellia, and it sorta hurts his eyes, so he has to keep blinking and looking around, trying to find something _not_ -white to focus his eyes on. He finally manages to settle on his own feet, clad in a pair of comfortable shoes and, under those, his favorite pair of socks (they're kinda fuzzy and really warm and Ben likes to wear them around the _Falcon_ whenever they're Travelling). He liked to wear these socks whenever he and Mom would curl up, under layers of warm blankets, and read.

Thinking about reading with Mom made Ben think about the _Falcon_ and Home, and he gets even more uncomfortable (and maybe scared) at the fact that they _aren't_ Home and he doesn't really know what this place is, but the white hurts his eyes, and the smell bites at his nose like that time he'd accidentally gotten it closed in a door.

He runs his tongue along the ridge of his bottom teeth, feeling it dip into the weird emptiness that'd been there ever since losing his front two teeth. They'd both gotten wiggly about a week ago, and he'd asked Dad to help pull them out. It had hurt just a little bit, and there had been a little blood, but Ben had smiled through it and Dad had laughed and Mom had given them both a fond smile and a hug. It still felt really weird, though, like when they're in the _Falcon_ and there's just empty space and nothing there. Ben doesn't think he'll ever get used to not having front teeth, but Mom said that new ones would grow in to replace them. (He's not so sure, but Mom knows Everything.)

He wonders if that Weird Emptiness he feels is how Mom feels now. He thinks maybe he can be a little more _patient_ (like Uncle Luke says) and _understanding_ (like Mom says), and a little less _selfish_ (like Dad says). Ben misses his teeth, and sure he's excited for his New Teeth, but won't he always miss them? Won't Mom always miss hers?

Ben glances at Uncle Luke, sitting so calmly and patiently in the chair next to him. Ben tries to copy him, breathing deeper and leaning back in his chair. But he can't settle the feeling in his stomach, like a bunch of flewts are flying around and trying to eat away at his insides. The image is even more upsetting, but Ben grabs a fistful of his pants in each hand and bites his bottom lip, focusing his gaze on Uncle Luke's knee and trying to 'find his center' (whatever that means) like Uncle Luke always says.

The hand on his shoulder is unexpected, and Ben jumps a little and twists to look at Uncle Luke so quickly that it reminds him of flying with Uncle Lando. He feels a hot blush running up his neck and onto his cheeks and he can't help but duck his head. He doesn't know why, but he feels really embarrassed about being so uncomfortable. He's supposed to be a Big Kid now (he's almost five, after all).

"What's wrong, Ben?" Uncle Luke asks, and there's nothing to make Ben think he's upset or anything, nothing but Uncle Luke's Kind Smile, the one he uses when he's trying to cheer someone up.

Without even thinking about it, Ben realizes that it does help, and the faintest little smile grows on his own face. But it quickly falls again when he catches sight of a woman rushing into the room that he and Uncle Luke were sitting outside of. (She's a _nurse_ , Ben reminds himself. They were at the _hospital_ and everything was fine.)

"I wanna go home," he says. Except that isn't what he wanted to say. He wanted to say that he was worried about Mom, because it'd been a while, and he misses her soft smiles and warm eyes and Dad's Hugs, which were the absolute _bestest_ , and he's confused about what happened on the _Falcon_ because no one really told him. He didn't mean to make it about _him_ , because he _knows_ that it isn't. But he and Uncle Luke had been waiting for _ever_ and he was getting bored and hungry and restless, like when he has to sit with Mom and Dad at gross Senate Dinners in his Good Clothes. Except worse, because he can't get the sound of Mom on the _Falcon_ out of his head (he doesn't think he ever _will_ ).

"I know," Uncle Luke's voice pulls him out of his own misery, bringing him back to their conversation. "But it won't be much longer now," he assures Ben in that knowing way of his, like he has all these secrets no one else gets to know. "And aren't you excited to meet your little sibling?" Uncle Luke's smile is _contagious_ (a big word that Mom used once, so it has to be Important) and the sick-like feeling in his stomach kinda comes back because he isn't really sure how he feels about his little sibling.

This little sibling that had been growing inside Mom for months and months and months, who got bigger and bigger until Ben couldn't sit on Mom's lap anymore, and who had a weird Force presence that always tickled around his own, and who made Mom sick sometimes and tired _all_ the time, so that she couldn't spend as much time at the Senate or with Ben. Who made Mom _cry and scream_ on the _Falcon_. And a bit of Ben kinda doesn't like his little sibling. He doesn't tell Uncle Luke. He thinks Uncle Luke already knows.

"You'll make a good big brother," Uncle Luke continues, repeating what Mom and Dad, and Uncle Lando, and Mon Mothma, and everyone at Senate, and all the strangers that like to come up to Mom and touch her stomach say to him.

Ben doesn't understand, not really. What makes someone a good big brother? He'd asked Dad once, and he'd asked Uncle Luke, but he still didn't know. It was like how everyone told him he was a 'chip off the old block', or the 'poster boy for peace' and the 'next generation of the Republic'. He knew that something was expected of him, but he didn't really know what people wanted. It's weird, and it makes Ben feel weird, and he doesn't like it.

He doesn't think he'll like being a big brother, either.

He doesn't say anything, though, because right at that moment the doors in front of him and Uncle Luke slid open with a quiet _hiss_ , and several people ( _nurses_ , Ben reminds himself again) step out and walk away. One comes up to him and Uncle Luke, who has already stood up and Ben doesn't know when he did it, and smiles at them. She has a nice smile, if not as nice as Mom's or Dad's or Uncle Luke's, and Ben thinks in the back of his head that she was kinda pretty (not as pretty as Mom, though. No one could ever be that pretty.) and thinking about Mom made the screams echo in his head. He runs his tongue over the Weird Emptiness again, messing with the softness of his gums there and almost, _almost_ , feeling a bit of his New Teeth poking out.

Ben doesn't catch what the Pretty Nurse says to Uncle Luke, but soon she's walking off and Uncle Luke is resting his hand on Ben's shoulder again and Ben is really, really grateful for it. It's like he's no longer weightless, floating in space, and instead he's like all the heroes from Ben's favorite stories, strong and brave and confident.

"You ready to meet the new baby?" Uncle Luke asks, all Big Smiles and Warm Eyes and Ben wants to smile back, really, _really_ wants to, and he doesn't know how he feels but he's pretty sure he can't smile. But he doesn't want to make anyone else upset, so he nods quickly and lets Uncle Luke gently push him towards the door.

Ben resists, just a little bit, digging his heel in the slightest amount, but eventually gives in and steps over the threshold of the door.

He instantly focuses on his parents, and the sight of them makes the feeling in his stomach go away and Ben doesn't feel like he's quite so sick anymore. The walls are still white and it still smells weird, but Mom's in a gown that's a cheerful yellow and she looks really tired (like she has a lot the past few weeks), but Ben would swear that she was actually _glowing_ and she just looks so happy, and Dad's next to her in the bed and his smile is the biggest that Ben's ever seen, bigger than any of Uncle Luke's, and Ben thinks that Dad's cheeks are going to hurt. But in the good way, like when Ben laughs so hard that his stomach cramps up.

 _Mom is okay. Mom is okay_. He repeats that in his head a few times, just to block out the sound of the cries.

Mom's stomach isn't all Big anymore, from what Ben can see, and instead she's holding this little bundle, wrapped up in a light green blanket that kinda reminds Ben of his own blue one he still sometimes needs to sleep. Except it's not his and so he doesn't know how to feel about that. He puts his hands behind his back and laces his fingers together, like Mom taught him to do whenever he got restless at a Senate Meeting, and messes with the Weird Emptiness again and suddenly it seems weirder than before.

Dad looks up at him, and Ben thinks that his Smile gets even _bigger_ (it really makes Ben happy, because Dad's Smile is the best and it's nice that it's better because of _him_ and not just the new baby). "Hey, kiddo," Dad speaks up, quietly though, like anything louder will wake the baby. "You wanna meet your little sister?"

Ben doesn't know. He thinks the answer might be 'no', but he knows that saying that will make Mom and Dad sad and he doesn't ever want Mom and Dad to be sad so he just sort of shuffles forward. Uncle Luke's hand leaves his shoulder and Ben knows it's because Uncle Luke wants to give him a little bit of time with just his parents and the baby but Ben doesn't like it and as he gets closer to the bed he starts to feel gross inside again and like he's drifting alone in space.

But then he's next to Dad and Dad's scooping him up in his arms like he's a little kid still (which he's _not_ , he's almost five), and it's a nice feeling and Ben's happy. And then he's sitting on Dad's lap and Mom's smiling at him so softly and he realizes that Mom looks completely fine, maybe a little tired, but she's _okay_. Ben thinks she should take a nap, like he used to when he got tired, and maybe the only reason she hadn't yet was because she wanted to see Ben meet his little sister (he _knew_ it was going to be a sister; girls were Trouble, that's what Dad always said).

He wants to make Mom happy, even if he almost feels like crying, so he turns his head and looks at his baby sister for the first time.

She's… _pink_. Like, really, really pink. And _wrinkly_.

Ben tells Mom and Dad so, and they laugh, so warmly and carefree, like on the Good Days where Mom doesn't have to go away for work and Dad's home, and suddenly Ben doesn't mind so much that he's been kinda lonely and bored and frustrated lately.

"I thought babies were supposed to be cute," he admits, almost embarrassed again. At least, that's what everyone tells him. He's beginning to think that adults were really weird and that maybe people's eyes got messed up when they got older.

Everyone laughs again, and Ben smiles because he was the reason behind it, and he looks up and realizes that Uncle Luke's joined them, standing on the other side of the bed with his hand (the Real Hand, not the cool fake one) on Mom's shoulder.

"Nah, Bud," Dad grins, "she'll grow into it. They get cute real fast," he assures Ben.

(Ben's not sure he believes Dad. He nods anyway.)

"What's her name?" Uncle Luke wonders.

Mom smiles, big and bright like a star, "Breha Organa-Solo."

Ben looks back down at the baby (his _little sister_ ) and thinks that the name's a bit long for someone so tiny. He tries the name out, to see what it feels like on his tongue, but he stumbles on it and his two missing teeth just make it worse, so that instead of sounding like 'Breha', it kinda sounds like just 'Rey'. Dad and Uncle Luke laugh and Mom smiles and Ben ducks his head, a blush creeping up his neck warm and uncomfortable. But the baby blinks open her eyes and shifts a little in her light green blanket, as if she knows Ben was talking about her. She lets out a high-pitched cry/gurgling noise that sorta hurts Ben's ears, and she somehow manages to get one of her hands loose of the blanket.

Without thinking, Ben reaches out his hand, placing one of his fingers in his sister's palm. Her hand curls around it naturally, like when flowers furl back up after the sun sets. It's not a very tight grip, but the instant it closes around his finger Ben _feels_ his sister. Not like when he would place his hand on Mom's stomach or lay his head there to try and feel the baby kick, but like how he feels Mom and Uncle Luke and even Dad sometimes. Except his sister isn't like Mom, whose all warm air and soft grass and the crashing of waves against rocks, or Uncle Luke, whose open space and bright, hot stars. His sister is sorta like the tickling of the sun against your face, the sunlight through the leaves of trees, and, very faintly, like background noise, the scorch of sand against bare feet. And suddenly, the feel of his sister washes away the fear and the echoes of screams in his head. Mom is alright, his sister is alright, and everything is okay, and Ben doesn't feel like crying anymore.

She's strong (of course she is, she's an _Organa-Solo_ , she's his sister), but she's also so very fragile. And Ben thinks about the Stories that Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke tell him, about Ben Kenobi, and Yoda, and Grandfather before he made his Mistakes. He thinks about the Jedi, and how they protected people, especially those who couldn't protect themselves. And maybe he might understand what being a big brother is actually about. He also thinks – Dad laughing so joyfully behind him, Uncle Luke smiling his Warm Smile, Mom carding her fingers through his hair – maybe he doesn't really _mind_ having a little sister.

* * *

 **(And yes, if you're wondering, Rey was 100% born on the Millennium Falcon and no one can tell me different.)**

 **I've already finished the second chapter (which I'll post next week), and I've started on the third chapter (probably in two weeks?); also, after I finish this piece, I'll be (eventually) following up with a companion piece for Rey titled The Keeper, so keep on the lookout for that!**

 **Thank you all so much for reading and I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!**

 **Feel free to leave any comments, questions, or concerns you guys have for me!**

 **Love you guys,**

 **~Cape**


	2. ii

_Ben is four years (and ten months) when Breha Organa-Solo is born. Everything sorta goes wrong and she's tiny and pink, and he doesn't really understand why everyone thinks she's so cute, why it's so important that he be a 'good big brother'.  
Ben is just past five when he finds out what that really means. It's terrifying, and awful, and he's so lost and confused, but he knows exactly what he has to do.  
Ben is almost eleven when he decides to become a Jedi. It's entirely Breha's fault._

* * *

 **Whoo! This got a lot more favorites and follows and reviews than I was expecting! Thank you guys so much for your support! I hope you continue to like the rest of the series as much as the first chapter!**

 **Again, fair warnings of any lingering weirdness. Ben is an unreliable narrator (he's only five, alright), and while he's actually really intelligent and perceptive, he's not yet old enough to really understand/employ that intelligence.**

 **This is a little bit less fluffy than the first chapter (a bit of action I guess? If it could be called that?) so sorry if it wasn't what you guys expected.**

 ***This in no way reflects my actual theories for Rey's parentage or the plot of the official movies.**

 ****Cross-posted on ArchiveOfOurOwn under the username little_yellow_cape**

 *****Everything belongs to George Lucas and Disney. I own nothing.**

* * *

 **ii.**

 _ **Being five wasn't really as fun as he thought it'd be.**_ It didn't really feel any different from being four. He was still too short to reach high up things, he still struggled reading big kid stories, and he still wasn't allowed to use any of Dad's tools. The only difference? Now he had a sister.

A sister who only really slept all day, except she'd wake up every few hours and cry her head off (even in the middle of the _night_ ), so that everyone else had to wake up with her as well. She was a restless sleeper, she was fussy at the best of times, and she couldn't even hold up her own head! Ben couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through the night, and he knew that Mom and Dad were just as tired as he was.

Even worse, though, was the fact that _he_ had to help out. Not that Ben minded helping. He always loved helping whenever Mom or Dad asked. But setting the table, or carrying things, or even handing Dad his tools were really different from bathing the baby, getting the baby dressed, and, _stars above_ , changing her _diaper_ ( _gross_ ).

Uncle Luke said to be patient, that eventually the baby would grow up, so that she could hold her own head, walk around, even stop wearing diapers one day. Ben couldn't _wait_ for that day, when he could run around and play actual games and have actual conversations with his sister. Sure, he'd always be older, but maybe one day she would be smart and strong enough to keep up with him (he really hoped so). Because it was downright boring, and frustrating, and so _terrible_ with her as a baby.

Not that he hated his sister. She was pretty annoying most of the time, but Ben understood that she couldn't help it, not really. Mom said that crying was the only way for her to tell them things, and it was important for them to listen. And Dad said that it was like whenever Ben got really frustrated but didn't know what word to say, so he would cry and scream, and Ben thinks he can understand the baby a little bit better. It's not fun having a Feeling or an Idea, but not having the words for it.

And besides, his sister wasn't _always_ annoying. Sometimes he thought she was really cute. (Dad had been right, the baby had gotten cute only a few days after coming Home.) Ben especially liked his sister whenever he was holding her (always with Mom or Dad around) and she was awake but not screaming or crying, and instead she was just looking around and trying (and usually failing) to grab whatever was in her reach. Sometimes he'd sneak into his sister's room and cuddle with Mom and the baby while Mom was reading stories (Mom had even let him read a few to the baby, although his voice wasn't nearly as pretty or nice).

Being five, Ben's two bottom teeth had come in, so the Weird Emptiness was gone and had been replaced, but then he'd immediately lost one of his top teeth, so his mouth was still kinda empty sometimes. His Words finally sounded like his own again, and he could actually say 'Breha' perfectly fine. But ever since she'd been born, his family had just called her 'Rey'. Ben said that it was because _Breha_ was a really stuffy kinda name, but his baby sister wasn't stuffy, and although she did cry a lot she was really too happy to be a stuffy-named baby. So everyone in the family just called her 'Rey' or 'Baby Rey'. Only strangers ever seemed to call her 'Breha', and Ben quickly found that it was easier to determine who was Trusted and who Wasn't.

Once, it even sorta saved their lives.

* * *

It was only a few days after Ben's fifth birthday, and they were on Coruscant for some sort of 'party', supposedly dedicated to _his_ birthday. (Ben knew that that was a lie. It wasn't _actually_ about him. It was about Promoting Peace, or something like that.) Besides, they had already had a party for Ben on the _Falcon_ while they were on their way here. It had been nice, just him and Mom and Dad and Chewie and Uncle Luke. Even Baby Rey had been in a cheerful mood and hadn't really cried much.

Being on the _Falcon_ was much better than being _here_. It was some high-ceiled, very fancy building, so beautiful and bright and decorated that it made Ben feel confused and overwhelmed and a little lost. There were a lot of people milling about, like little ants around their anthill, and Ben recognized a few of them as Senate Members that worked with Mom, but most of them were strangers. He didn't like all the strangers, so he clung to Dad's trousers ( _not_ Dad's hand; he wasn't a baby anymore) and tried to make himself as small as possible in-between his parents. (He found that it didn't work too well, since Mom and Dad were Heroes and the Honored Guests and _everyone_ wanted to talk to them – and him as well.)

Ben had been to several of these Adult Parties before. They were boring, and there were no games to play, and the food was weird, and Ben had to be on his Best Behavior for _hours and hours_. He wished Chewie wouldn't have stayed on the _Falcon_ , or that Uncle Luke would come back from wherever he disappeared to, or that Dad would scoop him up and they could sneak out of the Party like Dad usually did with him. But this was Baby Rey's first time at an Adult Party (her first time around so many strangers), and so Dad had been glued to Mom's side all evening.

Not that Ben was angry about that. He didn't want Mom and Rey left alone with all these strangers either. It was like before Rey had been born and Mom had still had a big stomach and everyone had always wanted to touch Mom's stomach or rub it or something weird like that. Except now they all wanted to hold Rey, or play with her, or give her a kiss. And that wasn't okay, even Ben knew that. Because Rey was still a baby, which meant that she could still get sick easily, so people were always supposed to wash their hands first (and Ben didn't think any of these strangers had washed their hands).

Ben tried to do his best to keep those gross strangers away. He was pretty sure Dad did, too. Whenever someone got a little too close to Baby Rey, Dad would angle a bit more towards Mom, so that his shoulder was facing the current stranger. Ben knew that that was rude to do; Mom said that you should always face people when you talk to them. But Ben ignored that. And, whenever Dad did that, Ben would step a little in front of Mom (not so much that he'd have to let go of Dad's trousers, where his hand was still fisted), just enough to stop people from getting so close.

The Party was going okay. Uncle Luke was still missing, Chewie was still on the _Falcon_ , and Ben was still really uncomfortable and hot under his Good Clothes, but it wasn't _awful_. They'd had dinner (weird gross stuff that was supposed to be a _delicacy_ or something, but Ben thought it tasted like a gundark's butt), and Ben had sat between Mom and Dad while Mon Mothma held and cooed over Rey. Mon Mothma was one of the only people at the Party that wasn't a stranger, and she was one of the only ones who was allowed to hold Ben's baby sister. Ben liked Mon Mothma; aside from Mom, she was probably his favorite Senator, and she was always really nice to Ben, and would sometimes let him sit on her lap at Senate Meetings and would usually sneak him little sweets whenever they dragged on too long.

But then dinner was over and they were greeting more people and Ben was getting really tired and bored and he just wanted to stop smiling because his cheeks hurt so much. He thought it was past his bedtime, and he knew it was far past Rey's. His sister had been really good so far; she hadn't cried much and she was only a little fussy, although that wasn't unusual because Rey was always pretty good with people, even if Ben wasn't.

Ben, on the other hand, was _tired_ , and _bored_ , and just really ready for the Party to be over already so that they could go back to the _Falcon_ with Chewie and Dad could tell him a story and Mom could tuck him into bed and he could sleep. He'd been trying really hard, and he'd been good _all day_. Ben had smiled at everyone, graciously accepted their 'birthday well-wishes', and had politely shook hands with what seemed like _thousands_ of people. And finally, _finally_ , Rey started crying (wailing more like; it was her _'time for bed'_ cry) and then Mom and Dad were saying goodbye to everyone and they were finally leaving and Ben felt like crying too.

But they didn't go back to the _Falcon_. They were escorted back to some rooms in the Party building, located on the top floor. They were nice, but made him feel stuffy and too warm and they weren't the _Falcon_ , so he had an immediate dislike for them. Coruscant was hot and gross and muggy, like a smelly, foggy swamp, but the _Falcon_ was usually cool and comfortable.

Mom and Dad bid goodnight to Mon Mothma, who had shown them to their rooms, and Ben politely copied them. Mom dismissed the Nanny Droid they offered her (Mom always liked to take care of Ben and his baby sister herself, and she usually only allowed Threepio to watch them in emergencies). And then finally they were alone, just the four of them. Rey was full on wailing now, and Ben couldn't help but agree with her. He was _exhausted_ and felt about to drop dead on his feet.

Suddenly, Ben was in the air and he couldn't help the rush of laughter that bubbled from his stomach all the way up. He was in Dad's arms, slung over his shoulder and hanging partially upside down. Ben couldn't stop giggling, even as they entered a room that Ben vaguely realized was going to be his for the night.

"Dad!" Ben managed to get out between laughs. "Put me down!"

Ben knew better than to think things would be that simple with Dad, though. Before he could react, Dad was tossing him down onto the plush bed in front of them. Ben bounced and rolled onto his stomach. Dad landed beside him, making the bed shiver and Ben bounce again. And then Ben was being _attacked_. Dad's hands were everywhere all at once, getting to all the places where Ben was most _ticklish_. Ben tried squirming and curling into a ball, but there was no escape, not from Dad. Ben hadn't laughed so hard since that time he squirt his drink out of his nose. Eventually, though, Dad stopped and allowed Ben the chance to breathe, still struggling through his giggles.

"Alright, little man," Dad said, standing up and heading to the drawers where their luggage and clothes had been stored for them. He pulled out two pairs of Ben's pajamas (neither were his _favorite_ , but those were on the _Falcon_ still). "Frogs or blue stripes?" Dad asked, holding both up for Ben to see.

Ben pretended to think about, even though he had already decided. "Frogs," he nodded slowly, as if it were a very serious matter.

Dad laughed, tossing the pajamas at Ben and putting the rejected pair back. Ben hopped off the bed and immediately started pulling off his Good Clothes and was glad to get rid of the itchy, uncomfortable shirt and pants. He slipped on the frog pajamas and smiled at how comfy they were, especially compared to his Good Clothes. They still weren't the Starfighter pair he had on the _Falcon_ , but they were soft and warm, but not too warm. Ben crouched and collected his Good Clothes off the floor, carefully folding them like how Mom taught him.

"Brush your teeth, and then off to bed, champ," Dad's hand landed on his head, ruffling his hair and messing it up, before turning him in the direction of the 'fresher and lightly nudging him.

Ben slumped and crossed his arms. He didn't like the room that they'd given him. It was too big and unfamiliar. None of his cool souvenirs were on the windowsill (in fact, there wasn't even a _windowsill_ ) like at Home, and there weren't any cool overhangings to climb like on the _Falcon._ "I don't want to go to bed," he grumbled _petulantly_ (a word Mom used whenever he whined about something).

"Hmm," Dad murmured, "that is quite the dilemma, huh?" he scratched his chin thoughtfully. "How about this, bud," he continued, kneeling down in front of Ben so he was closer to his height, "since you've been good today, we might be able to convince Mom to let you stay in the big bed," Dad nodded, and Ben could tell from his expression that it meant Dad was coming up with a Plan.

Mom said that was always a bad sign, but Dad's Plans were fun, so Ben nodded seriously and waited to hear what Dad would suggest.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," and Dad leaned closer to whisper into Ben's ear.

Ben giggled, but forced himself to calm down and nod seriously.

"Now, go brush your teeth, and I'll soften her up for ya, right kid?"

"Yeah. And then I'll go in for the kill."

Dad laughed and ruffled his hair again. "Atta boy," he grinned, before standing up and leaving the room.

Ben stifled his laughter behind a hand, scampering off to the 'fresher and brushing his teeth as quickly as he could (but still making sure they were clean; Mom was a stickler when it came to brushing). He bounded out of the 'fresher as soon as he was done, and only just managed to stop in front of the door before he left his room. Right, he had to follow the Plan. Taking a breath, he calmed down and made his face just the right amount of 'sad and lonely' that would make Mom take pity on him (that's what Dad said) and slowly stepped out of his room and into Mom and Dad's.

They had already changed into their own pajamas, Mom in a thin nightgown and Dad in a pair of boxers and a loose shirt, and Rey was already asleep in her little crib ( _bassinet_ , Ben remembered) next to the Big Bed. Mom and Dad were hugging, but in the gross way that Ben usually pretended to wrinkle his nose at and make Mom and Dad laugh. He didn't, though, because Mom had that soft smile on her face that meant that things were going according to Dad's plan. Dad peeked over Mom's shoulder and sent Ben a wink. Ben almost laughed, but managed to keep his face (mostly) straight. He wandered close to Mom's leg and she looked down at him before he reached her.

"Mama?" Ben asked quietly, making sure to use that name instead of 'Mom'. He wasn't actually sure when he'd stopped saying it all the time, but he knew that it always made Mom smile a little bit more.

He was right, and her smile did get bigger. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"Can I stay with you and Daddy tonight?" he murmured, folding his hands behind his back and digging his toes into the floor sheepishly.

"Well, since you _were_ such good company tonight," Mom drew out, in that tone that Ben knew she was already going to say yes, "I suppose we can make room for our favorite big boy," she leaned down to give him a kiss on his cheek and he wrapped his arms around her neck. Mom picked him up and carried him over to the bed like he was still a little kid (just this once, he didn't mind too much). Behind Mom's back, Dad gave Ben a thumbs-up, which he returned.

"Wait!" Ben whisper-shouted before Mom could set him on the bed.

"What?" she whisper-shouted back.

"I didn't say goodnight to Baby Rey!"

"We can't have that," Mom agreed, and set him down on his feet. "Remember, we have to be sneaky, or else she'll wake back up," she reminded Ben, pressing a finger to her lips.

Ben nodded, and crept up to the side of the _bassinet_ , stretching as high as he could on his tiptoes and leaning over the edge of the crib. He was careful not to accidentally rock it, even as he got close enough to Rey to delicately press his lips to her forehead. "Night, Baby Rey. Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite."

His nightly ritual attended to, he climbed into the Big Bed and snuggled under the covers, right in the middle. Dad joined him on one side, and Mom on the side closer to Rey. Mom folded her arms over Ben first, and then Dad, so that they were like a nice warm sandwich. Ben still wished they were on the _Falcon_ , where there was always that gentle humming noise, or at Home, where there was the sound of crickets and other cool night bugs. Instead, there was just the constant, shifting sound of the traffic. Ben didn't like it, but he eventually fell asleep wrapped in his parents' arms, and he was pretty alright with that.

* * *

Ben didn't know how long he slept, but suddenly he was dragged from his dream (a really nice one, too, although he couldn't remember about what) by the sound of knocking at their door. It was rapid and sharp, like whenever one of Mom and Dad's old War Friends knocked at their door, except it seemed harsher than usual. Mom and Dad were both immediately awake, not drowsy and grumpy like Ben, and Dad was heading for the door while Mom checked to make sure Rey stayed asleep.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep dirt from his eyes and missing the warmth of Mom and Dad in the bed. Ben could hear Dad and someone talking at the door, but he didn't know what they were saying, and Mom was humming gently to get Rey back to sleep. When Dad came back, Ben could tell that he was tense and that things were Not Good. There was a Nanny Droid behind him, but Dad ignored it in favor of grabbing a pair of pants and hastily sliding into them. Dad didn't need to tell Mom anything before she was doing the same, and suddenly Ben was the only one still in his pjs.

Dad let out a stream of words in a rush, but they were too fast and Ben was too tired and confused to catch all of them. "Luke found…main floor…safest room," or something like that was all Ben really heard.

Mom turned to him, kneeling down by the bed and placing her warm hands on either side of his face. "Daddy and I will be right back, okay sweetheart?" she told him, trying to sound strong and reassuring, but Ben could hear a hint of tension in her tone. "That's Q5-76S," Mom nodded at the Nanny Droid, "she's going to watch you while we're gone. There are Republic guards outside the door. Watch your sister and don't leave this room unless someone with the Code tells you, alright?"

Things were very Not Good, but Ben nodded seriously. "Stay here. Only listen to people with the Code. Got it," he repeated obediently, even if his stomach clenched and his hands shook a little.

"I love you, Ben," Mom kissed him on the forehead.

"Love you, too, Mama."

"Stay safe, kiddo," Dad grabbed him for a quick hug.

"I will," Ben promised.

He pretended not to notice the blasters Mom and Dad grabbed, pretended not to worry that it might be the last image he'd see of his parents. Ben wasn't stupid. He was young, yes, and maybe not the _smartest_ person ever, but he wasn't stupid. Ben knew that things were very Not Good, were, in fact, so Not Good that they were Bad. But if pretending like he didn't know would make Mom and Dad feel better, then Ben wouldn't mention the terror in his gut, or the feeling in his throat like the one he got before vomiting.

Instead, he tried to smile at Q5-76S (it failed miserably, and looked like a really bad frown) and scooted over on the bed so that his legs were dangling off and he could lean over Rey's _bassinet_. She was still asleep, although she was squirming in that way that meant she might wake up soon. Ben didn't really know what to do, and he didn't really like Nanny Droids a whole lot, so he started to gently rock the _bassinet_ , hoping that it might help Rey go back to sleep.

It didn't work as well as he'd hoped, so he looked over at the bedside table and found one of her pacifiers there. He offered it to her and let her grab onto a few of his fingers and she calmed back down. Ben forced himself not to think of Mom and Dad, to only think of his baby sister, so he just watched her sleep, matched his breathing to hers, rubbed imaginary patterns into the back of her tiny hand with his thumb. It relaxed him, until he didn't feel like crying or screaming or throwing up anymore. It made him think that maybe things weren't so bad, and that Mom and Dad would be back soon and everything would be fine.

That's where he was wrong.

Ben didn't really know how, but suddenly there was a lot of noise coming from outside their room. He could hear voices, loud and shouting, and the Nanny Droid (he forgot its designation) told him that everything would be okay. Ben didn't like the Nanny Droid; its lies were hollower than real peoples'. But he nodded, and leaned closer to Rey. She was getting antsier, like how his stomach felt, all jittery and squirming and not settling down.

Before Ben had a chance to react, the door was open and the Nanny Droid was on the ground and then there was a stranger slowly walking towards him. Ben had gotten to his feet without even realizing it, and he had placed himself in-between this stranger and Rey's crib. She was crying now, and Ben felt like crying too, and Mom and Dad were both gone, but they'd said he'd be okay except he didn't think things were _okay_.

"Ben? Are you alright?" the stranger asked, kneeling down and showing his hands, as if to prove he wasn't a threat. He sounded concerned and genuine, but his eyes were dark and cold, like stone. He was a War Veteran, Ben thought, because of the scars on his face and hands, but he wasn't anyone that Mom and Dad had introduced to Ben before.

His throat felt too tight to speak, but Ben drew in a quick breath and forced a short sentence out. "What's the Code?" Ben demanded, hating how his voice shook almost as much as his knees were.

The man had a harsh face, Ben noticed, as he saw it very briefly contort into what Ben thought was _annoyance_ or, even worse, _anger_. Ben didn't know what he'd done wrong. It was necessary to ask for the Code. It was how he determined between the Trusted and Not. But maybe Ben had just imagined it, because then the man offered a tight smile and responded.

It was the Code, and that meant that the stranger was actually Trusted and not really a stranger.

"Now, let's grab Breha and get you two out of here," the man continued, standing to his full height and taking a step in their direction.

 _Breha. Not Rey, but Breha_. Only strangers called his sister that. Trusted people called her Rey.

Baby Rey was screaming now (she'd lost her pacifier and Ben thought maybe she felt as uneasy around this man as he did). And Ben didn't know why, because he _did_ know the Code, but Ben didn't trust him. Ben figured codes could be broken, even his own. And why would the Stranger have needed to knock the Nanny Droid out? The Stranger was wearing a standard Republic Army uniform, but his blaster was a type that Ben had never seen any of their guards carry.

He didn't trust the Stranger.

But he couldn't let the Stranger know that.

Ben turned to face his sister, picking up the pacifier from where she'd dropped it and putting it back in her mouth. She was still fussy and upset, but she'd calmed down enough for now. "I'll carry her," Ben told the Stranger, "I can keep her calm and she doesn't like new people," he tried to explain.

Ben wouldn't _ever_ let the Stranger hold his sister.

(The Stranger felt weird… _gross_ …and it made pressure build up at the back of Ben's eyes and his stomach clench like he was sick.)

The Stranger regarded Ben with a calculating look, and Ben tried his best not to give away how he really felt about the man. Ben had to swallow thickly and fold his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking. Eventually, though, the Stranger's ice-cold blue eyes (not nice ones, like Uncle Luke's) turned from Ben and the Stranger nodded in permission.

Ben took a deep breath, letting it fill him from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. He was shaking, but he forced the shiver to the center of his stomach and tried to imagine the acid there melting all his fears and worries. (It didn't work very well.) He reached into the _bassinet_ and very carefully picked his baby sister up. Ben thought back to all the times he'd held her before, how Mom and Dad always reminded him where to put his arms and how to make her most comfortable. One of his arms went under her bottom and back, and her head nestled into the crook of his other arm. He made sure that she had her favorite blanket wrapped around her so that she felt safe (even if Ben _didn't_ ).

The Stranger placed a rough hand on Ben's shoulder, and Ben immediately felt like throwing up. He didn't, and he tried not to shake so much (he had Rey in his arms now, he couldn't afford to drop her), but it was hard and the Stranger was holding his shoulder too tight and it wasn't reassuring but _painful_ and Ben just really wanted Mom and Dad to come back. Ben carefully didn't think about how he'd last seen them, grabbing blasters and no doubt running into danger.

They'd be back. They _always_ came back.

Ben repeated that to himself, even as the Stranger all but pushed him out of the room and down the hallway. There wasn't anyone in the hallway, and Ben didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Weren't there supposed to have been guards in front of their door? What had happened to them?

Ben forced the thought away, just like he had tried to do with his parents. Tears stung at his eyes, threatening to spill, but Ben looked down, focusing on moving his feet fast enough to keep up with the Stranger (he was barefooted, and the floor was really cold) and on keeping his arms strong and steady, so that Rey would be alright (her face was scrunched, like she wanted to start crying again).

He lost track of where they were, and he felt so lost and confused and he didn't know what was going on. The Stranger was really scary. The man hadn't let go of Ben's shoulder yet and he never slowed down enough for Ben to keep up, so Ben always felt like he was going to trip over his own feet and fall. Ben tried to breathe normally and calm down, like how Uncle Luke had tried to show him, but his breath always caught in his throat and a few tears had leaked out, blurring his vision. He couldn't center himself and reach out for Uncle Luke or Mom.

Which meant that Ben was Alone.

Except…he _wasn't_. Because he had Rey. Rey who was too little to understand what was going on, too little to even hold up her own head. Which meant that it fell to Ben to do all that for her. Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke and Chewie weren't there to protect them. They were on their own, with a Stranger who knew the Code and was taking them somewhere away from their parents.

Ben realized, half stumbling on his own feet and trying so hard not to jostle the baby in his arms, that _this_ was what it meant to be a big brother. To put his own fears and worries aside, to focus on taking care of someone else's fears and worries (even if she was too little to know that she had them). He couldn't be the little boy that still needed a blanket to sleep, who ran to his parents and crawled into their arms whenever he had a bad dream. He had to be the strong one now, he had to be the protector.

The Stranger stopped abruptly, and Ben smacked into his leg, curling in on himself so that Rey wouldn't be smushed between them. Ben could hear the sound of footsteps, rapid and syncopated against the hard floor, headed towards them. He hoped that they were Republic troops, people who would look at the Stranger and know that he wasn't Trusted and stop him so that Ben and Rey could find Mom and Dad again.

The Stranger didn't seem to want that. Ben could tell that he was getting antsy and restless and annoyed. The hand on his shoulder tightened (Ben knew he would have bruises there after this) and then the Stranger was opening a door near them and shoving Ben into an unfamiliar room. From what Ben could tell, it was a maintenance room, filled with control panels and a few machines that he didn't really recognize. The Stranger all but knocked Ben into a chair and then kneeled in front of him.

There was a blaster in his hands. It was pressed into the bundle in Ben's arms, and he could feel where the blanket dipped because of it. Rey was crying, this high-pitched gurgling that drowned out even the machines behind them. Ben was crying too, a silent stream of tears that rolled down his cheeks and blurred the Stranger's face. He tightened his grip on Baby Rey, until he thought that it might've been painful for her, as if doing that could protect her from the blaster aimed at them.

"Listen here, you little shit," the Stranger spat, all attempts at appearing trustworthy gone. His eyes glinted even colder in the red-washed light of the maintenance room, and the scars on his face were thrown into a sharp relief that made Ben shiver. "You stay here. I've got a few heads to pop off. And if, when I get back here, I see that you've moved," he threatened darkly, leaning closer to Ben so that he could smell the Stranger's bitter breath, "I'll blow the baby's brains out."

As soon as the Stranger was gone, and the door was closed behind him, Ben was sobbing. Tears, salty and bitter and stinging, creeped their way down his cheeks, leaving wet tracks on his skin and dripping to dampen his shirt collar and Rey's blanket. There was a warmth in his pants that hadn't been there before, but the fear in his gut hardly left any room for the shame. Rey was screaming by now, like she knew what the Stranger planned to do to her. Ben wasn't stupid. He knew exactly what the Stranger had gone out into the hallway to do.

Ben choked on his own tears. He couldn't really distinguish between his own cries and Rey's. Rubbing furiously at his eyes, he clutched Rey to his chest and curled his knees in on them, like they were in a cocoon and nothing could hurt them, not even Strangers with blasters. Ben risked a look at the door that the Stranger had gone through. He couldn't hear anything beyond it, but he wasn't sure if it was because of the door or because his ears were still ringing with the sound of his and his sister's cries.

A glint of light caught his eye, and Ben choked down another sob and rubbed away the tears in order to see what it was. He coughed with the force of his cries, and very nearly started sobbing again, but he cleared his head just enough to realized that the glint of light was a grate, no doubt used as a service hatch. It was small, too small for adults, and probably only used by droids.

But…it was the perfect size for a kid and his baby sister.

It was too dangerous. The Stranger could come back at any moment and if Ben wasn't sitting in the chair then he was going to blast Rey's brains out. Ben was scared, terrified, _petrified_ and he didn't know what to do and Rey was still screaming and he was still crying. But he was a big brother. He was supposed to protect Rey, like how Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke and Chewie protected him.

He was still scared, more scared than he could ever remember being (even after all his worst nightmares), but Ben thought about what Mom or Dad or Uncle Luke would do. They would do something, even with the risk of the Stranger coming back. Ben suddenly remembered a saying Uncle Luke had told him once: _'it's only after feeling fear, that people can be brave.'_

Ben was scared. But he was brave.

(He had to be. For Rey.)

He slid from the chair onto legs that felt more like jelly than bones and muscles, ignoring the way his pants clung damply to his legs, and he forced himself to take the few steps necessary to reach the maintenance grate. Ben kneeled beside it and carefully put Rey down off to the side, making sure that she wasn't going to roll over into anything dangerous. (She was still screaming. The sound hurt Ben's ears, but he didn't have time to calm her, not now.) Hooking his fingers into the grate, Ben climbed to his feet and _pulled_. It was _heavy_ , heavier than anything Ben had ever carried (even heavier than having to carry Rey for a long time) and Ben could swear that he could feel his muscles and bones stretching with the effort. He leaned back, putting all his weight into it and trying so hard to lift the grate. Panic, raw and vicious and so, _so_ terrifying, settled into his chest, more painful than Rey's cries and heavier even than the grate.

But then the grate gave, and Ben fell back on his butt, the grate clattering to the ground and leaving a hole big enough for Ben to climb through. He was still crying, ragged sobs still clawing their way out of his sore throat, but he had a reason to keep going and only so much time. So he scooped his sister back into his arms, only pausing long enough to make sure he was holding her right, and then he was sitting down and sliding as carefully as he could into the service hatch.

It was small and cramped, even for him, and the pipes along the walls of the hatch were hot and oppressive. Ben crawled forward as best he could, but it was too dark to see and he had his sister in his arms and he hit his head a few times and jostled Rey too much. But it was the only way, and so Ben kept crawling, until they were far enough from the open hatch that no one could grab them.

Ben stopped, his breathing hard against the strain of holding his sobs at bay, and curled in on himself, wrapping around Rey and holding her as tightly as he dared. She was screaming louder than he'd ever heard her. The sound cut through his ears and straight to his heart like broken glass, but they'd lost her pacifier and Ben didn't know what to do. He'd never had to calm her down. Mom or Dad, or even Uncle Luke or Chewie sometimes, were always the ones to take care of her when she started screaming too much.

"It's okay, Baby Rey," he murmured, his own voice choked with the tears that stung his eyes and painted his cheeks. He was crying again, and he didn't think he'd be able to stop this time. "You're not alone. Your big brother is here, and I'm always going to protect you." His tears splashed onto Rey's face, mingling with her own. Ben leaned down and kissed her cheeks, like he'd seen Dad do whenever she cried so much, and then he placed his forehead against hers. "Mama and Daddy'll be here soon. They're heroes, and they'll always save us."

She grew quieter, until it was just their mutual sniffles, two lost little kids who were scared, but not quite alone. Rey reached up, and at first Ben thought she was going to pull his hair like she accidentally did sometimes, but instead she grabbed at his cheek. As if _she_ were the one trying to dry _his_ tears, and not the other way around.

The stench of his own pee stung his nose, and Ben was reminded of how his pants clung uncomfortably to him, and of how the pipes in the service hatch were really warm. And that there was a man, a stranger, out there with a blaster who wanted him and his sister.

Over the _hiss_ of machines, Ben heard the door slam open, heard the sound of rushed, heavy footsteps. He curled in even more over Rey, silently _begging_ her not to start crying again and give their hiding spot away.

"Ben?" a familiar voice cut through the sounds of machines and a relieved sob immediately bubbled up his throat.

"Daddy!" he responded, shuffling forward hurriedly, scraping his knees and banging his head multiple times in order to get out.

"Ben!" Mom repeated.

"Mama!" Ben sobbed.

Rey was crying again, and so was Ben, but when he finally reached the open grate, both Mom and Dad were laying on the ground, leaning into the service hatch and stretching their arms towards him. He handed Rey to Mom first, and then Dad was pulling him up and he was clinging desperately to Dad's chest, Dad's arms almost painfully tight around him.

But it wasn't painful, because Ben was holding onto him just as tightly too. And he was crying still, full on sobbing, but it was okay, because Mom and Dad were back, and over Dad's shoulder, Ben could see Uncle Luke talking to some Republic soldiers.

"You're okay, Ben," Dad was murmuring into his hair, where his lips were pressed against the top of Ben's head. "Daddy's got you. You're safe."

And it didn't matter that Ben had peed his pants, or that his face was covered in snot and tears, or that Rey's face was entirely red from screaming so much. Because he'd been a good big brother, and he'd protected Rey like he'd promised, and Mom and Dad were back, and the Stranger was gone for good.

They were okay. They were safe.

And even though he'd been scared, he'd been _brave_.

Ben swore then and there that he'd never let anything hurt his sister.

* * *

 **Sorry if it felt a little rushed. I swear it's not my laziness acting up. Five-year-olds don't quite grasp the concept of time, so for Ben it all felt like it was happening in such rapid succession.**

 **Although the chapter doesn't really address the issue (again, the narrator is five, he doesn't know these things), you could consider the Stranger a bounty hunter or something of that ilk. Some hired mercenary who was sent to snatch the Organa-Solo brats. (I don't know.)**

 **Also, I threw in a little bit of adorable Papa!Han and precious Mama!Leia, because I'm sorely disappointed with how their parenting skills are depicted in the EU (and let's not even mention fricken** _ **Force Awakens**_ **; it ruined all my hopes and dreams about happy families).**

 **I'm a little past halfway through the final chapter of this story (and then I'll begin working on Rey's companion piece), so I think I should be able to post it next week for you guys!**

 **Again, thank you all very much for reading this chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed it!**

 **Please leave any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions you guys have for me! (I swear I don't bite…much…)**

 **Love you all!**

 **~Cape**


	3. iii

_Ben is four years (and ten months) when Breha Organa-Solo is born. Everything sorta goes wrong and she's tiny and pink, and he doesn't really understand why everyone thinks she's so cute, why it's so important that he be a 'good big brother'.  
Ben is just past five when he finds out what that really means. It's terrifying, and awful, and he's so lost and confused, but he knows exactly what he has to do.  
Ben is almost eleven when he decides to become a Jedi. It's entirely Breha's fault._

* * *

 **So this is it guys! The final chapter for this installment! (I've decided to post this a few days early, because I finished much more quickly than I expected, and because you guys have been pretty awesome so far!)**

 **This was undoubtedly my favorite chapter to write (mostly because Ben's old enough to have more logical thought processes, and because Rey's old enough to do more than cry and scream). Ben's been a pretty good bro so far. Not so much this time. No one's a perfect brother, and Ben makes a mistake, Rey gets hurt, and things go downhill real quick.**

 **IMPORTANT NOTE: The 'Home' that Ben has been referring to is the only permanent residence that the Organa-Solo family owns, a house on Yavin IV, part of the Yavin IV Colony that Poe Dameron is canonically a part of. In my series, this colony is far bigger and has grown into a reasonably well-established town, not too far from Luke's new Jedi Temple. While Ben refers to this house as Home, the Organa-Solos actually spend most of their time on the Falcon, traveling between Core Worlds and vacations, so Yavin IV is technically more of a summer home for them than anything.**

 ***This in no way reflects my actual theories for Rey's parentage or the plot of the official movies.**

 ****Cross-posted on ArchiveOfOurOwn under the username little_yellow_cape**

 *****Everything belongs to George Lucas and Disney. I own nothing.**

* * *

 **iii.**

 _ **Sisters were annoying.**_ Little sisters were even more annoying. Breha Organa-Solo would probably win 'Galaxy's Most Annoying Little Sister' if such a thing existed, she was that annoying. (And, knowing her, she'd probably end up showing off her stupid 1st Place trophy like it was some sort of compliment.)

"But, _Ben_ ," the pest in question groaned, drawing out his name until it sounded like a monotonous whine.

"But, _Rey,_ " he mimicked in the high-pitched voice that didn't really sound like hers (but never failed to make her pout and stomp her foot).

"Why won't you play with me?" she grumbled.

As far as Ben could remember, _'play with me'_ had been Rey's first words, and he had long since lost track of how many times the offending words had assaulted his ears. Really, from the way she made it sound, it was like he _never_ spent time with her. The truth was that he spent far too _much_ time with his brat of a sister.

"Why won't you leave me alone?" he retorted sharply.

"I asked first," Rey injected promptly, tilting her little chin up as if it made her more entitled and important.

"So?" Ben rolled his eyes and all but shoved her out of his doorway so that he could get through. "I was born first," he reminded her smugly; (it was his go-to response, and it always made Rey frustrated).

He was right (as he usually was) and his sister huffed in irritation and half-heartedly lashed out with one of her feet as he walked past her. She managed to clip him right on the edge of his shin, but he ignored the faint sting and continued through the hallway and down the stairs. As she was wont to do, the six-year-old followed half a pace behind him, almost, but not quite, treading on his heels at every step. She made sure to shuffle her feet and make little grumbling noises every once in a while, to ensure that her older brother hadn't forgotten that she was angry at him.

Stopping at the coat closet, Ben quickly flipped through the garments until he found a light jacket. He pivoted and very nearly knocked right into his little sister on his way to the door. Luckily for her, she was all quick feet and quicker reflexes, knowledgeable in the best methods of avoiding being trampled by the older members of her family (the little brat had plenty of practice). Ben didn't bother to stop for her, instead impatiently throwing the front door open and traipsing down the steps of their porch.

Unsurprisingly, he heard the soft _patter_ of his sister's perpetually bare feet against the steps behind him.

"I'm coming, too," the girl asserted, and without even turning around Ben knew she had that determined, scrunched up pout on her face that she got whenever she tried to use Mom's 'No-Nonsense, I'm the Boss' voice.

Ben did turn around, though, and planted his hands on her skinny shoulders, spinning her and nudging her back towards the house. "No, you're not," he replied blandly, biting the inside of his cheek so that he didn't yell at her. Rey wasn't much of a cry-baby (even if Ben called her that a lot), and she rarely ever tattled on him for pushing her or anything, but the second he yelled or screamed his sister would be off in a heartbeat and he'd be grounded.

He wasn't too worried about that, however, as Ben and Rey were currently being 'babysat' by Threepio, and the protocol droid wasn't exactly great when it came to discipline. And, honestly, the only reason he was in charge of them was because Mom and Dad had been called away for an emergency council that their children weren't allowed to attend, and Uncle Luke and Chewie were both off-world and too far to stop by. So, it was just Threepio, Ben, and his little sister.

"Go have Threepio teach you Huttese or something," Ben muttered, rolling his eyes so hard that it nearly hurt.

"Um…" he heard his sister mumble.

Ben knew that sound, and he knew that it always ended with one of them getting in trouble. "What did you do?" he snapped.

Rey crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at Ben. "Nothing!" she replied hotly, scrunching her nose and scowling. The disbelieving and exasperated look that Ben gave her made her façade crumble ever so slightly, and she let out a puff of breath and wrung her hands behind her back. "We may need a new nexus converter for Threepio," Rey admitted in the quiet, remorseful voice she used whenever she got busted. (Mom and Dad never fell for it, and neither would Ben.)

Ben didn't exactly know what that meant (was the nexus converter the big cylinder or that small box with all the wires?); he'd always been more interested in history and the politics that Mom managed, not the machines and grease that Dad messed with. But Ben knew that his sister was far too likely to have broken Threepio ( _again_ ).

"Is he on right now?" Ben questioned between his clenched teeth. This day was getting worse and _worse_. He didn't want to deal with Rey right now; where were Mom and Dad when he needed them?

"No. He can't function _without_ the nexus converter," Rey scoffed, as if Ben were the stupid one here.

"Then why did you break it?"

"I didn't break it! I was trying to _fix_ it!"

"Well, good job. Now you're going to get in trouble."

"No, I'm not!"

Ben felt the urge to snap back that _yes she was_ , but that was childish and it was impossible to win pointless, childish arguments against the most pointless and childish sister in the galaxy. So instead of deigning her with a response, he started back for the treeline several meters beyond the house. But Ben had never been a very fortunate person, and his sister's stubbornness always seemed to win out over his own.

"You can't leave me home alone!" the six-year-old called, rushing a few paces until she could fall in step beside him. Her legs were still a good deal shorter than his, so for every one of his steps, she would have to compensate with two, causing her to do this weird little skip-step in order to keep up with him.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have broken your babysitter," Ben, in the entirety of his elder sibling omniscience, admonished. But the brat did have a point. For all her bluster and bravado, she'd probably end up breaking every machine in the house (and then probably grow terrified of every shadow and noise) if she were left alone. "Besides, Mom and Dad are due back around dinnertime. Just go play in your room for a few hours or something, or I'll leave you behind," he threatened, quickening his pace through the forest. His longer legs made him more capable of managing the underbrush and jutting roots, but his sister was more agile than a rat-monkey and seemed to scurry over obstacles like it was a game.

"Why are you even more of a _jerk_ than usual?" Rey muttered, walking along the edge of a mossy fallen tree like a balance beam. "Where are you even _going_? And why can't _I_ come?" The questions came out rapid-fire, and Rey lost her concentration, slipping from the log and landing in a heap on the ground.

Ben spared a look over his shoulder, just to make sure she hadn't accidentally broken any of her bones. She seemed fine even as she was disentangling herself from a thorn bush, so he merely rolled his eyes and continued deeper into the woods. "I'm going to go hang out with some friends. And _you_ can't come because they're older kids and you're just a _baby_ ," he explained shortly.

Why couldn't she just go back home? This was the first time the guys had asked him to go pla- _hang out_ – with them, and his stupid baby sister was going to ruin it by tagging along and making him look like some _doting big brother_ instead of one of the _cool_ kids that ran through the woods and through the villages without having to wait for some _baby sister_ to keep up. If he showed up at their hangout with Rey tagging along, he'd never hear the end of it, and no doubt Kaus would kick him back out of his club.

Ben had a choice here, at the proverbial split in the woods before him. He could do what was expected of him, what was, perhaps, _needed_ of him. To stay and wait for his sister to catch up, to go and play _Jedi Knights_ with her like they always did, like it was completely acceptable for him to continue playing such childish games all his life. The house had since disappeared beyond the coverage of the towering trees around them. Rey was better at navigating the woods than he was, but even so she might lose her way if she were alone.

But…he _could_ leave. The house wasn't _too_ far, and Rey actually _wasn't_ a complete bantha when it came to directions. And Ben really, _really_ wanted to go pla- _hang out_ – with the boys. They played better games, and had more fun, and _they_ didn't have to worry about little sisters and parents that weren't home and some stupid broken protocol droid that never shut up. Why _couldn't_ he just go meet up with his new friends? Surely he'd be home before dinner, before Mom and Dad, and then he could just promise to do all of Rey's chores and play a few games with her so that she wouldn't tell on him.

Yeah. That seemed like a decent plan to the (almost eleven-year-old) boy. He'd make it up to Rey later.

With that in mind, he ignored his sister tugging her shirt loose from the thorns and ventured out of her eyesight. In moments, there was a barrier of foliage between them, and Ben could no longer hear the rustles of his sister fighting against harmless barbs. It was a blissful quiet, one which Ben was unaccustomed to. After all, how could one achieve peace and quiet with a sister such as Rey? But he could find it here, among the soft sunlight through the tree branches, the twittering of the birds and the rustling of rodents. No sisters to bother him endlessly, only him and the woods and the prospect of adventure and _freedom_.

(Rey loved to find images in the shadows of the trees, tried to sing like the birds – she wasn't good at it – and longed to race the squirrels to the tops of the branches.)

The anticipation of adventures ( _fun_ ones, not little kid ones like Rey always conned him into) and the promises of Kaus and the boys spurred him on, until he was carelessly sprinting through the woods, bounding past trees and racing the animals that resided there. He could never go this fast with Rey, and the chance to stretch his legs seemed to feel like the greatest of freedoms in that moment.

Before long, however, the moment was past, and replaced with one of far more exciting temptation.

Their clubhouse was an old dilapidated building, one of the structures that had been used by the Alliance during the War, but had been half-destroyed during a battle with the Empire. Even if it had only been used as a supplies cache, the very history behind it painted a vivid picture in Ben's imagination, just as Dad's stories never failed to do, of Starfighters and Rebels and Stormtroopers and the swirling chaos of a fight. His blood sang with adrenaline as he stepped up to the building and climbed through a half-blown door.

The minute he entered the impromptu clubhouse, even before the dust around him itched at his nose, even before his eyes could adjust to the sudden darkness, something slammed into his back and knocked him onto his stomach. He tumbled to the ground, _hard_ , and his chin banged against the ground enough to make his teeth rattle in his head. Something was holding him down, pressing him into the floor, so that it felt like his ribs were creaking in his chest. Ben thought to the times he and Rey wrestled and how Dad would join in and teach them some tricks (before Mom showed up and they _all_ got in trouble). He lashed out with his elbow, one of the only things he could move, and managed to catch something (someone?) hard enough to topple it over, off of him. Ben rolled and scrambled to his feet. Getting stuck on the ground meant having the disadvantage. But before the fight (if that's what it could be called) could continue, the sound of laughter broke Ben's concentration.

He turned to where the sound was coming from, catching sight of a boy leaning against the wall opposite Ben. Well, boy wasn't exactly the right word to use, as he was several years older than Ben, already _fifteen_ , and he was almost an adult.

"Not bad, _Benji_ ," he remarked, his features and the sharp smirk that stole across them half-concealed by the shadows in the building.

"What was that for, Kaus?" he snapped, brushing his chin and feeling the back of his hand smear with blood. He wanted to rub his chest where it was smarting from the fall, but he knew that doing that would seem like a _weakness_ to the others in the room.

There were a handful of other boys around him, all of them a bit older than him, their faces stained with dirt and the old oil which seemed to coat the building, and their hands grubby with wasted dreams and stolen goods. These kids were the talk of the town, and everyone in the Yavin IV colony knew about them. Most were children of old Rebel fighters, just like Ben himself (and just like almost everyone in the Yavin IV colony), but these were kids who'd been orphaned and abandoned by the War. Mom and Dad said that the colony had tried taking them in, as if to replace the parents they'd all lost, but they'd become a nuisance to the people here. Poe said they were good for nothing rats, always out looking for a way to make trouble and ruin someone's day.

Mom and Dad had a pretty good track record of being right, and Poe was usually pretty smart. But Ben was old enough to have his own opinions, and _he_ thought that they were fun and cool and everything he wanted to be.

"Don't be such a pussy," Kaus scoffed, standing to his full height (a good deal taller than Ben) and striding over so that he loomed over the smaller boy. "It's just a game," he stated simply. "And if you want to be one of us, you've got to enjoy our sort of games."

"Yeah, that's why I came," Ben nodded.

Kaus twisted his mouth and nose into a discontented expression, like he'd eaten some rotted fruit, and studied Ben with sharp black eyes that seemed to remind Ben of the carnivorous birds that pecked at dead bodies. (Ben wondered, idly, if that made him the dead body in this situation; he decided he'd much rather be one of the birds instead.)

Kaus opened his mouth as if to respond when two boys scrambled through the partially damaged door. They were holding a smaller figure in-between them and there was a short scuffle as they attempted to hold the smaller figure in place.

"Let me go!" the captive argued, lashing out and managing to catch one boy with a foot right at the junction between his legs while the other boy received a nasty, bony elbow right to the stomach.

Ben simultaneously felt his blood freeze and boil. He immediately felt like he should say something, but his body betrayed him and there was now only lead where there had once been a tongue. Besides, what would he say? Yell at Kaus' boys for trying to hurt his sister? Yell at his sister for following him even though he had told her not to?

Kaus made the decision for him. "Alright, alright calm your tits," he snapped at the two and waved off any others who had attempted to help. "Seriously, you pussies, it's just one little girl!" Kaus remarked condescendingly, walking up and crouching so that he was closer to Rey's height.

Thankfully, the guys weren't holding her arms anymore, and they were crossed over her chest in her perpetual scowl, her chin tilted up in defiance and her face twisted into an unimpressed look.

"Hey kid," Kaus greeted, offering a sharp-toothed grin. "What brings you to our humble abode?" he swept an arm out, a showman boasting his world of tricks and games.

Rey wrinkled her nose. By the light in her hazel eyes, Ben knew she was about to say something they'd both regret. "I couldn't ignore the smell of bantha _shit_ ," the ever-eloquent child retorted, promptly spitting in Kaus' face.

Ben held back a wince, even as Kaus and the boys broke out into peals of laughter. (If Mom _ever_ found out Breha had used that word, both him _and_ Dad would be scrubbing their mouths with soap for a week.)

"I like this kid. She's got spunk," Kaus cackled, standing back up. He turned to Ben and gave the younger boy a quick onceover. "This brat's your little sis, ain't she? Bet you want her to hang out with us, big brother," Kaus hooked a thumb back in Rey's direction.

Ben looked past Kaus to meet the eyes of his sister. She'd seemed tough and funny to the guys so far, but Ben knew his sister, and he recognized the glossy shine of her eyes, the imperceptible tremble of her upper lip, the determined pinching of her face. It was the same look she'd been getting ever since she was a toddler.

And he felt bad. Really, he did.

But Breha should've stayed home. And Ben wanted to hang out with these guys, not with her.

"Nope," Ben scoffed, turning his head aside and waving the very notion off. He broke eye contact with Rey. It was, perhaps, an attempt to ignore the betrayed flash in his sister's eyes. (He could still see it, clear as day, in his head.) "I don't hang out with _crybabies_ ," he continued disdainfully, as if to burn down all the crops, to raze the farms to the ground, to sow the soil with salt.

A chorus of boyish _'oohs'_ accompanied Ben's remark, and the satisfaction of having them on _his_ side made the burn of his sister's wobbling lip simmer down into a mild annoyance.

"You hear that, brat?" Kaus crowed, bending down in order to get in Rey's face. "He called you a _crybaby_. And we don't deal with crybabies here. Sorry for your luck," he nodded sympathetically, and yet the spark in his dark eyes was anything but sympathy. If he were pressed to answer, Ben would probably use the word _'enjoyment'_.

That left a foul taste in Ben's mouth. One that felt suspiciously like _guilt_.

He pushed the thought away. It was okay for Kaus to enjoy this. It was all just a game anyway, right?

"I'm not a crybaby! I'm braver than you smelly gundarks!" Rey yelled, getting up onto the tips of her toes so that she could get right back in Kaus' face as well.

"Really?" the boy questioned, leaning back and scratching at his chin in contemplation. "Then if you're so brave, why don't you prove it?" he suggested, that sharp-edged smirk cutting across his features, jagged and gleaming like the blade of a knife.

Ben shuffled on his feet, an uncomfortable pressure suddenly tightening in his chest. This wasn't really all that fun anymore. Why couldn't Rey just go home already? Why did she have to follow him and ruin everything, like she _always_ did?

He noticed that even the other boys were beginning to grow restless, anticipation and unease building until the air in the dilapidated building-turned-clubhouse seemed stifling and suffocating.

Rey, for all her lack of understanding normal social cues, seemed sobered at the sudden tension around her. Ben saw her swallow thickly and she sniffled ever so slightly, trying to make it seem like she only had a runny nose or something.

(She didn't.)

"To prove it," Kaus went on, either unfazed by the same atmosphere that affected the others, or simply careless of it, "why don't _you_ , Little Miss Crybaby, go fetch something for me?"

His little sister took a breath and narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?" she managed to get out, even though her voice seemed to quiver in the stale air.

The grin that stole across Kaus' face was thrown into stark relief by the singular ray of light that spilled into the building, skittering over half of Kaus' face just as a veil seemed to shimmer over the rest.

"I want a single hair."

Confusion swept like a river torrent through the building, dispelling the anticipation that had threatened to send the clubhouse and its members collapsing under the weight.

Rey adopted her best unimpressed look, the same one she gave Uncle Lando whenever he tried to pull tricks on her and she knew the secret behind them, and planted her hands on her hips, just like Dad did whenever he was talking to someone he didn't like. "A hair?" she scoffed incredulously.

"A hair," Kaus confirmed smugly, "from the _Howler_."

Just as quickly as it had evaporated, the pressure was back full force, and the whispers and chuckles of the boys around had dropped into utter silence.

"C'mon, Kaus, the _Howler_? She's just a little kid," one of the boys, the one who'd tackled Ben earlier, stepped forward slightly, scratching at the back of his neck.

"So?" the leader of the club shrugged. "If she's not a crybaby, then she's brave enough to do it. And, if she does it, then she's cool enough to hang out with us."

"And if she can't?" another boy wondered, just loud enough for the rest to murmur in agreement.

Kaus glowered at them as if the answer should be _obvious_. "Then she can run home crying to her Mommy and Daddy like the crybaby she is."

That shut everyone up. Everyone except Ben's head, which seemed to be flipping over and over faster than the _Falcon_. The story of the _Howler_ was a bit of a local legend, one conceived and propagated by the relatively new residents of Yavin IV. No one had ever seen him, but everyone had heard the baying cries, the haunted shrieks that disturbed the still quiet of the night. Then, last year, there'd been that incident where _something_ had broken into old Sal Kel's runyip pasture and killed several of the livestock.

(Old Sal Kel was crazy, though, so most of the adults just sorta ignored him. But the kids always flocked to his property just to hear him screeching and swearing at some invisible threat.)

Mom had said to stay away from Sal Kel's property after that, even though she said she didn't believe in any ghost stories. Dad had told him and Rey about the _Howlers_ he'd transported for a job once, and had taught them the best way to wrestle one after Rey had had a nasty nightmare about it. Uncle Luke had merely said that he didn't sense any disturbance like that in the forests, not even around the old Massassi temple he had fixed up. And Chewie simply promised that if he ever saw any _Howlers_ , he'd rip their arms off and bring them back for him and Rey (Mom had yelled at him for that, but Dad had been laughing too hard to admonish the Wookiee).

But none of them were there. It was just Ben and Kaus and his boys and Ben's little sister, and none of _them_ had faced off Stormtroopers or bounty hunters or Sith lords, let alone one measly _Howler_.

(Ben wanted to go Home.)

"Alright," Rey's voice broke through the raging tempest that was Ben's mind. He looked to his sister, hoping beyond hope that she would admit defeat and go back home. It was a hollow hope, because Rey had been fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to inherit the stubborn streak from not just one, but both of their parents. She already had that fire in her hazel eyes, and the puffed out chest she adopted whenever she was about to do something stupidly brave. "I'll go get your stupid hair," she promised Kaus with all the sobriety a six-year-old could muster.

Kaus smirked. (Ben felt like beetles were crawling under his skin.) "Then off you go, brat," the older boy shoved Rey out of the clubhouse. "Go to that grotto by old Sal Kel's place, and pick off one of the hairs of the _Howler_. We'll be waiting here for you."

Ben felt the other boys stir, felt the same feeling that clung to the back of his throat dance over the minds of them as well. She was just a little kid. Not even any of _them_ had ever braved the _Howler's_ cave, so how could some little girl manage it?

"It'll be a fun game," Kaus added.

And just like that, the guilt was gone. Because Kaus said it was just a game, so it was just for fun. It was a _joke_ , and jokes were _funny_ , and this one would be too.

His sister didn't seem to agree with their idea of fun (and that's why Ben had ditched her for these boys; they knew about _real_ fun). She looked past the boys, through the broken doorway, and found Ben. He still remembered the first time he'd met those eyes. Back then, they'd been a cloudy blue, but they'd exploded into a pattern of hazel with flecks of gold and green. Even so, they were the same wide eyes, full of life and promise and unconditional love. But also with confusion and longing, the eyes of a lost child.

(Ben didn't know how to find her.)

He felt like he was being torn apart, between what he _needed_ to do and what he _wanted_ to do.

But he could feel so many eyes on him, gazes crawling over his skin like the angry buzzing of enraged insects in the summer. The eyes of his sister, big and wide and so expectant, and the eyes of Kaus of his boys, narrow and accusing and demanding. They all wanted something, _needed_ something from him, and he couldn't give them what they wanted, couldn't decide what he would give. So, he did the next best thing. He averted his eyes, and let them make the decision for him.

His sister didn't cry.

And then she was gone.

Kaus started laughing first, and like ripples that appeared in the lake after skipping a stone, the boys followed his example and chimed in, until all of them had tears in their eyes and several had wrestled each other to the ground. Ben tried to laugh with them (really, he did), but the noise sounded hollow compared to the ringing in his ears.

"You really think she'll do it, Kaus?" one of the younger boys, a grubby-faced blonde who looked a little older than Ben, piped up amidst the chortles.

"I don't know," he responded nonchalantly, and yet the air about him made Ben think that he already had an idea. "C'mon boys!" Kaus suddenly crowed, effectively jolting the last of them from their debilitating laughter. "Let's go on an adventure!" With that, a flood of boys broke from the confiscated clubhouse, streaming into the shroud of the forest.

"Where are we going, Kaus?"

"Yeah! What are we gonna do?"

"I wanna throw stones at ol' Sal Kel's place again!"

"That was fun!"

"Or we could toss Tsitan's goods into the lake!"

Ben let the comments roll over him, crashing like a tidal wave and threatening to drown him beneath. Even as he ran alongside the others, warmed by the blood pumping through his veins and the heat of the quickly setting sun, his limbs felt heavy and cold, like he'd been dragged down to the bottom of the lake, trapped there by tangled plants he couldn't undo.

"We're going to the _Howler's_ cave," Kaus called back to them from where he was leading the pack, of course at the very front. After all, he was the oldest and had the longest legs. "We have to make sure the brat goes through with it, don't we?"

Excitement was ripe in the air, twining with the bitter sting of guilt and fear, until Ben was lightheaded from the confusion of it all. He stayed silent, though, even as he followed the others past old Sal Kel's place, even as they shushed each other and scrambled over the loose boulders before the grotto, even as he gazed up at the last vestiges of the setting sun and knew that Mom and Dad were probably home and that he was in so much trouble.

But…he was having fun, right? So that made it okay. And it's not like they were _hurting_ anyone.

They crouched at the top of the boulders, overlooking the clearing right in front of the infamous _Howler's_ cave. Ben had somehow gotten himself wedged between Kaus' jutting shoulder and some other kid's putrid armpit, and he had to wriggle just to get a good view. He didn't know what they were waiting for, but the anticipation made his neck prickle like someone was watching him, and the excitement at the very idea of a surprise, of an _adventure_ made Ben fidget in his spot. _This_ was why he had wanted to hang out with Kaus and his friends.

Rustling came from the bushes down near the cave, and the boys hunkered down and waited with baited breath. Out popped the arrival they'd been awaiting, and Ben truly thought that the galaxy hated him. Scabby knees, bony elbows, and messy brown hair. _Of course_ they'd beaten his sister to this place (she may have been fast, but Kaus knew all the shortcuts), and _of course_ she'd actually decided to go through with this crazy plan.

The sun was fully set by now, the scene bathed in an eerie yet soft glow from one of the nearby moons. Yavin IV was a moon in and of itself, and it had no natural satellites of its own, so their world was left to be illuminated by the distant stars and whatever fellow moon was within the same space as them. It left the woods darker than they should've been.

(Rey was still scared of the dark. She'd never admit it, but Mom and Dad always made sure she had a nightlight.

There were no nightlights out here.)

Ben kinda felt like throwing up, even as his attention was drawn away from his sister. Kaus had turned to a few of the boys on his other side, whispering fiercely to them. They grinned in response, before branching off into two groups and disappearing in separate directions. Ben didn't know what they were doing, but something about the way his stomach pitched and roiled made him have a bad feeling about this entire expedition. (Why hadn't they just stayed home?)

When Kaus twisted back to face Ben, there was a glimmer in those dark eyes that made Ben want to shiver. "What d'ya say, Ben? Won't it be nice to not have to worry about your crybaby little sis following ya around anymore?" he muttered, a jagged stretch of skin carving a smirk onto his features.

"What do you mean?" Ben shook his head. The prickling on the back of his neck grew more pronounced. There was a chill in the air. He had the taste of bile in his throat.

"After this, I don't think she'll want to follow you," was all Kaus said.

Ben didn't know what to make of that. He tried to ignore it.

(It wouldn't leave him alone.)

Rey had since inched closer to the entrance of the cave, a wide gaping hole that seemed to swallow every speck of light to be had. There, she hesitated at the precipice of the _Howler's_ home, teetering on a row of rocks, only a step away from the reaching blackness of the cave. The very sight made Ben sick. He couldn't help but think what would be worse at this point: getting attacked by the _Howler_ , or having Mom and Dad find out about this outing.

"Kaus," Ben whispered, his voice hoarse and strained even to his own ears, "I don't think this is a good idea," he admitted.

The sneer wasn't fully unexpected, but it was disconcerting. "Oh? You don't want to play this game, _Ben_?" the boy snapped under his breath. "What's the matter?"

"I don't think my parents would lik-"

"Your parents!" Kaus almost shouted, the sneer now an all-out snarl. "I'm beginning to think maybe _you're_ the crybaby here! What's the matter, you pussy, gonna go cry to Mommy and Daddy?"

Ben pursed his lips into a harsh, flat line, mostly to keep them from wobbling. "That's my little sister, Kaus. It's not funny anymore."

But before either of them could say anything else, there was a sudden commotion down in the clearing. A guttural keening noise arose from the depths of the cave, echoing off the rocks and dispersing shrilly through the trees. Rustling came from the trees, their limbs shaking as if even they were terrified by the disturbance, and a flock of birds erupted from their cover.

Ben's blood ran cold, so cold that he thought it might've been turned into ice, but even through the sluggish pulsing of his heart in his ears, Ben knew that that wasn't the baying of some legendary monster, but rather the ministrations of some idiotic boys.

It was the final noise, the last note of the cacophonous chord, that sealed the deal for Ben, that reminded him that this was very much _not_ fun. A shriek, a screech, high and shrill and piercing, tearing a jagged hole straight through to his heart. It was a sound he had once been quite accustomed to, a more infantile version of it the bane that had kept him awake in the middle of nights years ago. The cry, the _scream_ of his baby sister.

And, from right beside him, transposed over the searing sound, was the grating of _laughter_ on Ben's ears.

He saw his baby sister, collapsed as she was in the middle of the clearing, curled up and sobbing, crying out for their parents, for Uncle Luke, for Chewie, for _anyone_. He saw the gaggle of boys, half-hidden around the mouth of the cave and the underbrush on the opposite end of the clearing, laughing like there was no tomorrow (laughing at _his sister_ ). He saw Kaus next to him, a cruel glint in his dark eyes and a harsh chuckle ripped from his throat.

But mostly, Ben saw _red_.

A bright, visceral red, like the crimson of smashed beetles, the beads of blood that bubbled over cut fingertips and scraped knees. Anger like Ben had never felt before flooded through him, crashing as the waves against the cliff's side, hot and itchy and overwhelming, the blistering scorch of a summer sun, the caustic sear of boiling oil, the mordant _snap_ of an untempered flame, burning and devastating everything in its path until all that remained was Ben's smoldering ashes and the resounding cries of his little sister.

He lunged. Slammed his body against Kaus' as the waves against the cliff, as the anger against Ben. He let it wash over him, the anger and the fire and the _red_ , and felt something both simultaneously be born and destroyed within himself, a star in its supernova, no longer giving life, but rather out to _take_ it. He fought. Not as the waves, taking piece by piece over years and years, but as the fire, burning and raw and thriving, devouring everything in the blink of an eye, never stopping until the very last of the wick had burnt through.

It didn't matter that Kaus was older, or bigger, or stronger. Didn't matter that they had tumbled over the edge of the ridge, down into the clearing where Ben's _baby sister lay sobbing_. Because Kaus was the towering trees, impressive and daunting, but only for as long as they could avoid the searing of a wildfire, a fire that started as but a single flame, unrefined and fragile, and grew and grew and _grew_ until it flared out over the tops of branches and hunted down every fragment of life, scorching indiscriminately and unrestrainedly.

Ben was that flame, as fragile and delicate as the tiny candle he had started out as, but ignited and surging and so _powerful_ now that there was _something_ , an _obstacle_ , to climb and overcome and devastate.

His knuckles were torn, blood ( _red_ blood, everything was _red_ ) flying from his hand as he cocked his arm back. Kaus was under him, no longer looking so high and mighty and in charge, but there was still a sneer on his lips, still a glint in his eyes.

(How _dare_ he? How dare _any of them_? To _use_ him? To _insult_ his family? To _hurt his baby sister_? Who the _hell_ did these _bastards_ think they were? _How dare they?_ )

Rey's crying was quieter now, drowned out by the shouting and screeching of boys ( _insolent, foolish boys; how dare they?_ ) and the roaring of an engulfing flame in Ben's ears. He flung his hand out, reached for that ever present woven tapestry around him, that encompassed all of life and everything that resided in it, and he latched onto a single thread. He _pulled_. Yanked as if his life depended on it, as if to drag that damned tapestry off the wall, off the pedestal it hung on, as a fuel for the raging, untempered flame.

He heard it, loud and consuming, just as the fire roared in his head, and the boys shouted in his ears, and his sister cried in his heart. The rocks, the supporting sentinels of the ridge, looming and resolute in the night, collapsed under the strain of that pulled thread, submitted to the wavering of the tapestry that Ben had commanded. He was the crashing of the waves, but these rocks were not steady enough to be the cliff, and so they collapsed around him, shifting and spinning in midair as if supported by the threads of a tapestry.

Kaus wasn't smiling anymore. There was a different gleam in his eyes, bright and wet and primitive, the fear a common shrew held before the cat pounced. He screamed, sharp and cutting and jagged just like his smile, just like the humor he had allotted for Ben's sister ( _how_ _ **dare**_ _he?_ ). The words were knives flung uselessly at a moving target, and yet they tore through the flames of Ben's mind, whipping past only just slow enough for his burning mind to hear over the searing.

 _Freak. Monster._

Ben didn't know how, but one minute he was winning, his opponent pinned beneath him and crying, and the next the wind was driven from his lungs and he was knocked onto his back. He tried to get up, the fire unimpeded by the obstacles of the forest, but Kaus was already on his feet, already _fleeing_ , like the coward, the _monster_ he was. Ben screamed, loud as thunder and cutting as lightning, ( _How dare you? How_ _ **dare**_ _you?),_ and he longed to give chase, to spread the fire until it burnt through everything.

 _"Ben?"_

Quiet. Gentle. The hushed churning of the sea after the storm dispersed, the hint of blue that crept out past the clouds, the hesitant twitter of a bird in the early morn. Voice a teary note, ready to weep at the cruelties of the world, the salty droplets not evaporated by the roaring of flames, but rather soothing it.

And just like that, the flame was doused.

He collapsed. Weak-kneed, bleary-eyed, and so, so tired, Ben collapsed. He fell back against the boulders that he had moved, the avalanche that he had commanded settled already in the clearing. Kaus and the boys were gone. Ben didn't think they'd be back anytime soon.

Ben took a deep, shuddering breath. Like Uncle Luke always said. _Calm is the key to success_. Without the fire to keep him warm, he felt ice creep into his veins. He was sticky with sweat and blood and tears. He felt sick to his stomach.

(But how _dare_ they?)

"Ben!" a cry now, soft and scared and all too innocent for the burn of flames, a sob that both ignited and doused the fires nestled deep in his soul.

But, as it always did, the call spurred him on, dragged him to his feet, forced him to shuffle closer to the sound. His eyes trailed the ground, the rough divots cracked into the earth by the weight of fallen stone, and so when his gaze finally met that of his sister's, he nearly collapsed again.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and wide, her face pinched and dirty and bruised. Teeth dug into lips, eyes squinted, hands balled, all in an attempt to stave off the incessant tears that distorted her vision, a tourniquet to ebb the flow of pain.

This time, Ben did not see red, did not feel fire and anger. This time, it was _black_. Despair and pain and so much _guilt_ that he felt lost in open space, swallowed by a black hole and left to be ripped apart by its strength.

She was trying not to cry. Ben could tell. But there was hurt and pain and raw _agony_ in her eyes (hazel eyes, although they'd once been cloudy and blue). Ben understood why, and it was all the more painful to realize that it was _his_ fault, not Kaus', not the boys', not Rey's, but _his_.

( _How could he?_ )

He choked out apologizes, full of regret and guilt and _love_ (because he _did_ , he _did_ love his sister), and she gritted her teeth and tried not to cry. She failed, of course, and by the time he had levered the rock off of her leg and they could sit back to assess the damage, the horrid, grotesque blue and black of her ankle, how her foot was turned a direction that it should not have been, Rey was sobbing and inconsolable.

It was Ben's fault.

( _How could he?_ )

But she threw her arms out, seeking any form of comfort she could find in the chilly night air, and Ben gathered her against him. Careful, always so careful, of the ankle that had been crushed just as assuredly as Ben's love for Kaus' idea of fun. He kissed her on the temple, just as Mom and Dad would have, and apologized once more, promised that he'd never leave her again.

Rey sniffled, and offered Ben a teary-eyed grin. Weak and fragile, but still there. "We don't need those smelly banthas anyway," she told him.

Ben choked on a laugh. He was crying now too, just as much as his baby sister. The fire was gone and he felt so hollow and ashamed, and guilt was heavy and thick on his tongue. But his sister was strong (stronger even than him), and she didn't hate him. She didn't blame him (even if she should). He wanted to cry and scream, wanted to run off so that Mom and Dad would never find out what he'd done, so that they could never be disappointed with him.

"Let's go Home," he said instead.

It earned him an eager nod and a quiet sniffle. "I want Daddy and Mama," Rey agreed through her tears, and that's all Ben needed to gather his strength, to gently pick his sister up and slide her onto his back. She fisted her little hands in his jacket and a few sobs escaped her pinched mouth, but she buried her face against his neck and Ben thought that maybe she'd already forgiven him.

(He hadn't forgiven himself. He didn't think he ever would.)

His knees shook and his head swam a little and Ben felt so exhausted, but he walked around the fallen rocks and into the woods, back towards their home, where Mom and Dad waited, probably worried sick for them.

It was his fault. He'd probably spend the rest of his life making it up to his sister, to his parents. Maybe they would never trust him again. Maybe they'd never _love_ him again.

(No. That was a lie. Mom and Dad would be disappointed, _furious_ even. But they loved Ben, and a few mistakes along the way would never make them stop.)

It was then, with Ben a burnt out husk, his injured sister quickly passing out on his back, the night-darkened forest around them, that Ben thought maybe he understood Grandfather more than he ever had. He still didn't know the Full Story (Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke said they'd explain it more when he was old enough), but he knew that Grandfather was a bad man. And he knew that Grandfather became that way because he had tried to protect the ones he had loved, except in doing so he had forgotten _how_ to love.

Ben had never really understood that bit. How could one love people so much, work so hard to protect them, that they _lost_ their sense of love? Ben wondered if Grandfather had had that same fire, the scorching, searing flames that had burned through Ben and left only devastation in its path. And Ben thought he understood now.

Fire was powerful. Very powerful, even. It could destroy forests and plains and cities, and even entire planets. But that was the problem, wasn't it? Fire burned everything. Even those you may have lit the fire to protect. It did not stop for loved ones, it did not stop at all. It was uncontrollable. It was untamed.

It was dangerous.

Ben thought maybe he was a lot like Grandfather, and the very idea made his skin hot and itchy, made it crawl with bugs. But Ben knew now. He knew that the fire was not always a good thing. Perhaps not always bad, but it was not something innocent and good.

He decided that he wouldn't be like Grandfather, that he would start meditating like Uncle Luke suggested, that he would talk to his uncle about this, that he would learn how to make the right decisions and not hurt the people he loved. He would become a Jedi. Not like Grandfather, who had used it for power, but like Uncle Luke, who used it to promote peace, to teach others love.

His sister was asleep now, her cries quieted by sleep and her head lolling uselessly against his shoulder. Ben looked back at her, how the faint light of distant stars and moons filtered through the leaves and how the shadows played on her face.

No, Ben decided. He _wouldn't_ be like Grandfather. Because Ben understood now, knew that fire was strong, but that _love_ , the dousing tears of a little sister, the warm hugs of a parent, was far more powerful than even that. Perhaps that was what Grandfather had once forgotten. Perhaps that was why he had turned from love, and had given into hatred.

Ben promised that he wouldn't, that he'd be strong like Uncle Luke and use the Force not for hatred, but for _love_. Because Ben had so much that he loved, had so much that he refused to lose to hatred.

Love, Ben thought, was what families were for. It was why parents existed, to teach it. Why siblings existed, to share it. Why families existed, to spread it.

Love, Ben realized, was what Kaus and his boys needed. Those who had no parents to teach it, no siblings to share it, no families to spread it. They were the ones who needed it most.

 _Love_ , Ben decided, was exactly what the galaxy needed more of. It needed more parents, and siblings, and families. It needed a brother, a guardian, just as Rey did, to protect it and love it and stand by its side.

 _Love_ , Ben promised, was exactly what he'd give.

* * *

 **No one picks on Ben's little sis. Like, ever. (Just don't.)**

 **So, yeah, Benny still has his anger issues (I figured no matter how good he may be in this, his short temper is a pretty major facet of his character). But, unlike in canon, Ben actually has a reason to understand the repercussions of his actions at a young age. I felt it was important for Ben to realize that he actually is a bit like his grandfather, but to come to conclusion that he doesn't have to be bad as well. This will have lasting effects on Ben throughout my series, and will play into the difference of how the whole Snoke issue is dealt with.**

 **This is it for The Guardian. Thank you everyone for your support during this! I hope everyone enjoyed this as much as I did! Please be on the look-out for the companion piece, The Keeper (which might be out next week? maybe? if we're lucky?) and eventually any other installments for the series!**

 **Thank you all so very much!**

 **Love you all lots!**

 **~Cape**


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